Philip Bouwsma’s Luminari is the result of thorough historical studies, but it is not a reconstruction of one particular calligraphic style. Luminari is a clever combination of different medieval scripts, from ornate Church penmanship to the simple Carolingian invented for day-to-day writing under Charlemagne’s rule. The minuscules also show some influence from the early fifteenth century — the handwriting of the humanist Poggio Bracciolini. The result is a calligraphic typeface with a distinct, eclectic look, combining economic round forms with angular “gothic” styling.

A recent addition to MyFonts’ list of foundries is the Tart Workshop, a venture of Minneapolis lettering artist and illustrator Crystal Kluge. Her charming lettering oozes fun and wit, and some of it is so irregular and whimsical that it would be a shame to try and drill it into a well-behaved font. But for some of her alphabets it works brilliantly: with the help of the prolific Stuart Sandler, they were transferred to the OpenType format. Using OT here has a great advantage. For instance, when you type “ee” in a program that supports OpenType functionality, you get a ligature of two different e’s, jumping up and down along the baseline. Henparty Sans and Henparty Serif were originally designed for an online tea store for chicks. Both fonts are ideal for kid projects, scrapbooking, and much more.

After the beautifully idiosyncratic Jana Thork, Brazilian designer Ricardo Esteves Gomes has now released his first dingbat font. Gaia is a dazzling series of ornaments, each of which can be used as a single form or as a part of a graphic pattern. Combining and repeating these swirling shapes in different hues can result in stunning optical effects.

Designing a connected script that works really smoothly is a job for specialists, and Cocktail Shaker is a job well done. Stuart Sandler has managed to make virtually every letter combination look natural and tasty. While the lowercase characters form a calmly undulating chain of connected shapes, with just a few tactfully placed interruptions, the capitals stand alone — and it works perfectly. These are not swash initials, and when used with care they even function in all-caps setting. Cocktail Shaker combines playfulness with clean readability and a twist of Atomic Age retro-futurism.